申論題

Most of the nation’s 285 million egg-laying hens spend their lives in spaces no bigger than a letter-sized piece of paper, barely able to move about freely, turn around or spread their wings. 

Animal-welfare activists have battled state by state for years to change that, taking on a well-funded egg production industry. As grassroots campaigns go, the activists have done well, but they knew the fight could go on for years and burn through tens of millions of dollars while animals continued to suffer. 

Now, though, there’s hope for the hens because a strange thing happened on the way to the next skirmish. The activists and the industry reached a compromise, pending in Congress, which involves phasing in larger “enriched cages,” with a percentage of the industry installing new cages every six years for the next 18 years. 

The story of how this deal came about holds a larger message for antagonists in weightier issues such as immigration, climate change and banking regulation: Pay attention and see how it’s done. 

Four years ago, few would have predicted compromise in the great egg fight. In California in 2008, the United Egg Producers and the Humane Society of the U.S. each spent $10 million in a battle over Proposition 2, which mandated that chickens be raised in environments where they could move about freely, producing what are known as cage-free eggs.